Sunday, October 02, 2016

I found a copy of Spy
magazine from the mid-1990s when I cleared out some storage boxes the other day. Spy was a nothing’s sacred snarkfest for
hip cognoscenti of the time. I don’t know why I kept this particular issue – probably some tenuous
connection with someone who worked there, or who was related to somewhere who
worked there. I flipped through it, chuckling at some of the irreverent skewering of public figures and fads. That is, until I got to a page containing a calendar of “The Worst Events in History.” The calendar included events like the
Hindenberg explosion, the Titanic, and "on December 30th, Davy Jones
was born in Manchester, England".

I tossed the magazine. (Yes, I know. It's all a hoot til they make fun of someone you like.)

Davy Jones was to snarky music people of the ‘60s –‘00s what
Justin Beiber is to today’s snarky crowd. A convenient teenie-bopper idol and
scapegoat for all that was (perceived to be) uncool, Davy and the rest of the
Monkees were relegated to the remnants table of musical history for a long time
after the TV show ended.

They were “the pre-fab Four, they don’t play their
instruments, they don’t have any talent, blah-blah”. Reality proves the
nay-sayers wrong on all counts. Davy Jones and Mike Nesmith had solo recording
contracts before they were Monkees. Micky Dolenz played in a band and recorded
a few singles, and Peter Tork was a folk singer in Greenwich Village.
Of course, other musicians (Frank Zappa, Jerry Garcia, etc.) defended them.
They hung out with the Beatles. Tork introduced Buffalo Springfield at Monterey
Pop and dated Janis Joplin.

Oh, and let’s not forget “Headquarters” the Monkees’ third
album. Fed up with not being allowed to contribute more than a few self-penned songs
or play their instruments on their first two studio albums, they rebelled. In a defining moment that would do a punk rocker proud, Mike
Nesmith punched a plasterboard wall in a Beverly Hills Hotel room during a
meeting with musical director Don Kirshner. He told Donnie (allegedly) “That coulda
been your face, motherfucker.”

Kirshner went on to the Archies, and Headquarters went on to
top the Billboard charts upon its release in May 1967 – until the Beatles Sergeant Pepper usurped it the following
week.

Still, some people persisted in trashing them. And this continued throughout the 1970s,
where any mention of the Monkees as an entity was greeted with a snicker, except
by loyalists and young kids who watched Saturday morning reruns of the show.

This changed after the 1986 reunion. And even the reunion
was short-lived in the mainstream. By the end of the 1980s, interest had waned
for all but the loyal fans. Micky, Davy and Peter continued to tour as the
Monkees for the next few decades. Mike joined them to record the Justus album (and tape a TV special) in 1996, but both projects failed to capture the public's interest.

P.S.- I still think “Regional Girl” would been a hit in
’96 if the Monkees had used a cloaked advertising campaign ala the Alarm and used a young band in the video.

Fast forward to 2016. The Monkees and Rhino release the
album Good Times. Produced by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne,
with new songs written by Rivers Cuomo, Andy Partridge, Ben Gibbard and Noel Gallagher/Paul Weller. All cool young
–ok-middle aged guys - with a bunch of indie cred. Micky sings with his old
Hollywood Vampire buddy Harry Nilsson, through the miracle of digital
technology on the title track. There’s a
reworked versions of Davy singing “Love to Love”, Peter singing “Little Girl”, a song he
originally wrote for Davy, and the
album-closing “I Was There (And I’m Told I Had a Good Time),” based on one of
Micky’s stock interview responses.

Ben Gibbard joins Micky to sing Me & Magdelena in Seattle

The release of Good Times
coaxed out older Monkees fans who had remained undercover for years. It debuted
at #14 upon its release in May the band’s highest charting album since 1968,
and was #1 on Billboard’s vinyl release chart.

Legions of fans have now joined social media regulars to
post about their love for the Monkees. The fandom-oriented site Tumblr is full
of teens and twentysomethings who like the Monkees. The Tumblr fandom was at its peak for a year
or two after Davy died, and leveled out to a calmer pace for this year’s 50th
anniversary. Now, Facebook and Pinterest host the brunt of Monkees’ photos and
discussions.

To accompany the album and Monkees renaissance, a slew of
books about the band have been released in the past few years The most recent, The Monkees, Head and the ‘60s by Peter
Mills, examines the movie that closed out the bands’ first era and all the
events of the 1960s that influenced its making and the TV series.

Michael Nesmith’s Last Show as a Monkee – September 16, 2016, L.A.'s Pantages Theater

A few weeks before the Monkees, I mean Twokees, show at L.A.’s
Pantages Theater, the band announced it would be Micheal Nesmith’s last live
performance as a Monkee. Tickets for the show, which were already scare,
disappeared.

I attended the show, and it was truly sold out. I spied not
one empty seat. People flew in from England,
Japan, New
York and all points in the U.S.,
and the crowd was in a boisterous mood.

Micky, Mike and Peter took the stage and, after a
preparatory huddle, the band blasted into” Last Train to Clarksville”.
There weren’t any obvious references made about the show being Mike’s last.

Despite their ages (Peter’s 74), you get the feeling they’ll
keep going, together or separately, til they’re 100, or maybe 105 in Micky’s
case. (He just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny.) It’s hard to believe
any concert by any boomer artist is actually the last one. How many last tours
have we seen from the Who, Kiss and Black Sabbath? With 20 years of farewell
concerts under our belts, how can we believe anyone’s proclamation that this will
be the last concert? It’s not over until someone’s dead and buried, and even
then, their holograms make an appearance.

Clips from the episodes played on the screen in the
background; it was hard not to take your eyes off the stage for a sec and look.
(I saw Peter sneak a peek a few times.)

It was a flawless, fast-paced show from Micky, Mike, Peter
and their backing band. Coco Dolenz (Micky’s sister) & Circe Link were
sublime on backing vocals. Mike’s son Christian Nesmith on guitar, drummer Rich Dart,
bassist John Billings , keyboardist Dave Alexander and lead guitarist Wayne
Avers provided a rich and textured, but totally rock sound to the festivities.
This wasn’t a “Vegas backing band” type experience.

Highlights - A
softer, reworked version of Sometime
in the Morning leading into Mike and Micky’s voices blending perfectly
on the haunting Me and Magdalena.

Micky, Mike and Peter and the crowd at the Pantages singing
the chorus to Daydream Believer as the Rainbow Room video of the song -
with a recording of Davy singing - played.

Mike singing a heartfelt version of Tapioca Tundra and talking about
what inspired the song (the band’s first live show in Hawaii).

The energetic versions of "Listen to the Band", "Circle
Sky", "Mary, Mary" and "Do I Have to Do
This All Over Again?" verged on hard rock. The back-up band really cooked on
these songs, and the guys belted out the vocals with gusto. How is it that the
guys are in their early 70s and their voices are stronger than ever - even
Peter!

In the lyric booklet for Good
Times, Gibbard wrote “I spent countless hours in front of the TV in the
‘80s, watching Monkees reruns and wishing I could climb through the screen and
be with them.” There’s not much difference between what a young, non-musician
girl in the ‘60s or a young, musically inclined guy in the ‘80s felt when
watching the show or listening to the music. When I was a kid watching the
original broadcasts in the 1960s, I
hated it when the show ended. I wanted to go live with the band and share their
adventures with all week.

The Monkees deserve to be in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
While the value of the hall itself is debatable, we all know they should be
enshrined with their peers. Maybe their trajectory was different, but they left
an indelible imprint on pop culture, more so than many bands that were real
from the start.

The guys have forged a musical and emotional connection
with countless fans through the past 50 years. The bond ispretty intense and rivaled
only by the affection and reverence felt by Beatles fans.

It looks like the Monkees got the last laugh on those snarky
journalists and know-it-alls.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Shout It Out Loud: The Story of Kiss’s Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon

James Campion

Backbeat Books, 400 pages

Released on March
15, 1976, Destroyer
catapulted Kiss from underground sensation to constant media presence. The
recording of Destroyer was as
colorful and chaotic as the album itself, and every nuance is covered in James
Campion’s book Shout It Out Loud: The Story of Kiss’s Destroyer and the
Making of an American Icon.

Before Destroyer,
Kiss attracted mostly male fans with songs about sex, sex, whores and more sex.
(OK, so not that different from what
they’d do later on.) With the single “Beth”, the band catapulted into
mainstream consciousness and have remained there for over 40 years.When Kiss
Alive was released in 1975, it became an unexpected hit, and the recording
of the next studio album took on new importance.

The
book covers the band or “The Act’s” (Campion’s term) pre-history and their
first three albums for legendary Casablanca Records. Despite their outrageous
appearance and a music press that lapped it up, mainstream success eluded
them.You’d think with all
the facepaint, leather and platform boots they’d storm through mid-70s America
immediately, but the road wasn’t that easy.

Bob Ezrin, the young Canadian producer who helmed Alice
Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare,
signed on to produce the band’s fourth studio album. Ezrin greeted the band
naked except for a bowtie (allegedly), but the recording sessions that followed
weren’t always quite as light-hearted. Ezrin schooled the band in music theory
and challenged them to expand their creative horizons. A stern taskmaster, he
even refused to procure Gene’s hookers for him.

Ezrin ran the sessions like a musical boot camp, taking the
demos and working with the band to improve them. Case in point - “Beth” started
out as a demo from Criss’ old band, Lips. Originally a song called “Beck” about
a nagging wife, Ezrin and the band reworked it into the ballad that saturated
the airwaves in 1976.

The song, originally paired as the B side of “Detroit
Rock City”,
took off when DJ Rosalie Trombly of Windsor-based, Detroit-aimed CKLW started
playing it, preferring it to “Detroit
Rock City”.
Listeners loved it so much Casablanca
made it the “A” side, and the ballad became “The Act’s” best-selling single
ever, reaching #7 on the Billboard charts.

The Destroyer sessions succeeded in turning the four
distinct personas – previously relayed by just costumes and make-up, and
breathed fire (excuse the expression) and life into them. The album - and
“Beth” were the starting point of the “How Can We Miss Them If They Won’t Go
Away?” Kiss empire. The songs weren’t just rowdy party anthems, under Ezrin’s
direction, they took on mythic proportions.

“Do You Love Me?” established Paul as the Starchild, the
group’s romantic lead. Ezrin and the band reworked the Stanley-penned “God of
Thunder”, into Gene’s theme song, giving his onstage demon persona the perfect soundtrack.
“Flaming Youth” and “Great Expectations” were positioned as youth anthems.

Drawing from Stanley’s
memory of a news story about a fan who died in a car crash somewhere in the
South, Ezrin sandwiched “Detroit Rock
City”, a raucous tribute to the Motor
City, with an audio melodrama, complete
with news radio snippet and car crash sound effects.

Campion devotes quite a bit of detective work attempting to
unearth the real story behind the tragedy that spawned “Detroit
Rock City”,
and the entire epilogue is devoted to this subject. The book consists of new interviews
and tales from Ezrin, Jay Messina, Corky Stasik, Kim Fowley, Bob Gruen, Ken
Kelly, (the artist who designed the iconic comic superhero cover),and lots of
archival interviews.

Shout It Out Loud: The Story of Kiss’s Destroyer and the
Making of an American Icon may be way too involved for the causal fan. If
you’re looking for some quick gossip, or if the nuts and bolts of songwriting
and the analog recording process bores you, this book’s not for you. There are
the usual tales of Ace and Peter’s drinking and drugging, sex in the studio and
such, but Shout It Out Loud
concentrates on the writing and recording and subsequent promotion of Destroyer in minute detail.

Devoted Kissaholics, however, will appreciate the look into every
nook and cranny of the recording sessions, promotion and tour that accompanied Destroyer.

Friday, February 05, 2016

The second album from French power pop trio, Fuzzy Vox, No Landing Plan, is an upbeat collection
of songs combining the best attributes of melodic power pop and hard-edged
garage rock. The band travels out of their comfort zone into social commentary
and psych-pop on a few of the tracks, without sacrificing the infectious beat.

Fuzzy Vox formed in 2011 in Joinville Le
Pont, France, on the outskirts of Paris. The band released a few EPs before releasing
2014’s On Heat, their debut album.

Singer Hugo Fabri has the vocal chops to veer from melodic
powerpop to raunchy garage rock with no detectable accent. And he supplies the
album’s brisk, no-frills guitar work and keyboards. Drummer Nico Maia and
bassist Gregoire Dessons form a sturdy musical backbeat, keeping the album’s
groove consistent.

For No Landing Plan,
the band ventured to California to record, enlisting producers Ryan Castle,
who’s worked with Snow Patrol, Black Sabbath, Billy Idol, ZZ Top, etc., and Andy
Brohard (Wolfmother, Tegan and Sara, the Hives). The songs were mastered by
Howie Weinberg, who has worked with Nirvana, the Ramones, Herbie Hancock, and
other legendary artists. The ace recording team renders the band’s well-crafted
songs into crisp, infectious tracks for maximum danceability.

“Explosion of Love” kicks off the album with an infectious
beat designed to make you move. The frenetic rhythm of “Distracted” is great
for pogoing or frugging, a ‘60s garage rock revival that channels the Sonics. “Told
You Before” with its out-of-kilter energy and gritty vocals, has that
unapologetic brashness of mid-60s Kinks’ and Who. “Raw Evil” starts out a bit
like Elvis Costello, then segues into heavier garage rock. “Bo Diddley” pays
tribute to one of the architects of rock ‘n’ roll with its frenetic beat. (The
band’s featured a window-rattling version of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of
Fire” on their Technicolor EP.)

“Don’t Leave Me Behind”
is bouncy, skinny-tie power pop to the nth power, and “I Got a Girl” draws from
Plimsouls influences with a wilder pace.

The band proves they’re not afraid to tackle serious
subjects in “They Shot Charlie”, about the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack. The
tone picks up again with the bouncy “Easy
Street”. The album’s last track "A Reason to Love" is lush, psych-pop with a guitar theme
out of a TV western. A spoken word interlude near the end fades out with
some distorted guitar, making it the album's most ambitious track.

Pure, high energy songs, tight playing and production, and a
groovy ‘60s era comic book album cover make Fuzzy Vox’s No Landing Plan a 30 minute
joyride for fans of fun, unpretentious rock
‘n’ roll.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

The new album by L.A.
based alt-folk band Sci-fi Romance, Dust
Among the Stars, creates a somber landscape that pulls you in without
depressing you. The songs make you think more than brood, and ultimately, show a
glimmer of hope. Another strong effort, it’s just as thought-provoking as
Kotrla and company’s previous releases, including …and
surrender mybody to the flame and The Ghost of John Henry.

Singer-songwriter Vance Kotrla finds inspiration in found
film, horror movies and quirky pop culture. There’s a sense of this, of the
atmospheric and the unusual, on Dust
Among the Stars, even when the songs themselves don’t deal with those
subjects.

Most of the songs on Dust
deal with love, the uncertainty of life – normal fodder for pop and rock songs,
but the presentation gives it a depth not found in many rock releases.

“If I Fell”, combines pop love song sentiment
underscored with somber thumping rhythm. This gives it a haunting charm that’s neither
mainstream nor pure Goth. “Everything Burns” reflects on the lost love and the
passage of time, with Jody Stark’s plaintive cello emphasizing the message.

“Pale Blue Dot”, inspired by a photo of Earth taken by
Voyager I, puts man’s place in the universe in perspective.(“All we are/ all
we’ve ever been/ a pale blue dot on the head of a pin”) The track is dedicated
to astronomer Carl Sagan.

“Shakespeare’s Lovers” features guest vocalist Kristen Vogel
, an opera singer whose performed with St. Petersburg Opera and the Asheville
Lyric Opera, among others. Her soulful but tender soprano brings this tale of
star-cross lovers to life. She also adds vocals to the romantic “Let’s Run”, her
warm, reassuring voice meshes with Kotrla’s baritone. The closing ballad “When
You Wake”, consisting of only guitar and vocal, has the quiet comfort of a
lullaby.

Dust Among the Stars
is the most accessible of the Sci-Fi Romance CDs, but that doesn’t mean Vance
Kotrla has lost his edge. On the contrary, Sci-Fi Romance is just tapping the
surface of their capabilities.

Friday, January 15, 2016

This September marks the 50th anniversary of the
Monkees TV show, and the introduction of Davy, Micky, Mike and Peter into music
and pop culture history. The TV show’s two year run is the most beloved
creation featuring the guys, but the following 48 years the guys stayed active,
recording and touring either solo or together in various formations. The causal
fan on the street may only remember the various reunion tours, Mike’s solo
career, and have a vague recollection of “Pool It” orDolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart You’d really need to be a hardcore fan to
remember the other projects Davy, Peter and Micky participated in between the
end of the 60s’ Monkees and their reunion in the ‘80s.

England’s 7A Records, the brainchild of broadcaster Iain Lee and music executive Glenn Gretlund, both
long-time Monkees fans. The label’s name comes from the spoken intro at the
beginning of “Daydream Believer”, when Davy asks, “What number is this, Chip?”,
and receives the curt response “7A!”The label is dedicated to releasing long-lost Monkees related gems, including music by affiliated artists. 7A recently released The First Bobby Hart Solo Album by songwriter Bobby Hart of Boyce and Hart fame.

The label’s first release, Micky Dolenz--The MGM Singles Collection arrived on July 15th ,
2015, and is available as a vinyl
LP and digital download. Most songs on this collection have been floating around Youtube
and been shared as MP3s on various message boards for years. Thanks to 7A,
they’ve finally gotten a proper release.

After being
on a highly rated TV show, with a whirlwind ofhit songs and tours, Dolenz had to start over from square one (as did
Peter and Davy), given how ex-teenie bopper idols were typecast in the 70s (or anytime, really.) Writing and
recording at his home studio and at other locations throughout L.A., he began recasting his music career.

Admittedly, the songs on the MGM Singles Collection aren’t the cream
of the crop, but Micky still had the vocal chops of his Monkees days. Any
extracurricular activities with the Hollywood Vampires didn’t diminish it.
Speaking of the notorious party animals, Dolenz’s Hollywood Vampire
partner-in-crime, Harry Nilsson, wrote “Daybreak” a vibrant calypso number, and
the album has four different versions of the song.

There's the traditional, bouncy pop of "Easy on You", and the plaintive commentary on human nature in "It's Amazing to Me", songs that are easy on the ears, but not particularly memorable. The quirky “Unattended in the Dungeon” has some dicey lyrics, but, after all, it was the ‘70s, the decade of “Angie, Baby” and “Run, Joey, Run”

Dolenz and producer Michael Lloyd formed a duo they dubbed
Starship in 1972, and worked together on their version of “Johnny B. Goode”, (the
song Dolenz performed during his audition with the Monkees) and several other
tunes.

In the audio interview included with the download, Dolenz tells
Lee says he recorded the songs just for fun, without any expectations of having
a hit single. Mike Curb and MGM promoted the songs just the same, but despite
the PR efforts, the records sank without a trace.

The accompanying booklet reveals some interesting tidbits
abut the sessions. Among, them - the late, great Cozy Powell played drums on
some of the recordings (which ones aren’t indicated), and Dolenz recorded
“Family of Man” (later a hit for Three Dog Night) and “Since I Fell for You”
and other American standards.

7A Records promises more Monkees-oriented releases, including (fingers crossed) a DVD release of Keep Off My Grass, a marijuana themed comedy from 1975 starring Dolenz. You can find
more info on their website. (See links at the end of the review.)

Micky Dolenz- The MGM Singles Collection is an interesting addendum to Monkees
history, sure to be enjoyed loyal Monkees fans and collectors of lesser-known
musical side trips.

The First Bobby Hart
Solo Album

7A Records

You’ll do a double take when you hear “Funky Karma” the
first song on the re-release of The First
Bobby Hart Solo Album. When you think of Bobby Hart you think of “I Wonder What
She’s Doing Tonight” and other Boyce and Hart hits, or “Last Train to Clarksville”
and other Monkees hits, so it’s a surprise to hear the R and B tinged songs on
this album, originally released in 1980. Boyce and Hart wrote hundreds of pop
songs, but left to his own devices, Hart’s material is urban R & B, with an
equal mix of funky grooves and tender ballads. The album opener “Funky Karma”
would be right at home on any R & B playlist. “I’m On Fire” is a sexy
dance floor track, and “I Can’t Fight It” draws from the the soul hits of the
Moments and Delfonics with disco on the side. “You’re Breaking My Heart/Street
Angel”, about a carousing lover, is underscored with a slinky rhythm. “First
Impressions” deals with the hopefulness of new love.

“Hurt So Bad,” penned by Hart,
Randazzo and Weinstein, was a big hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials in
1965, and has been covered by Linda Ronstadt and many other artists. The
composer’s take is pure slow jam as evidenced in this clip from a TV show in Hong Kong.

The re-release has three
previously unissued tracks –“Runnin”, “I’m Just Takin’ the Long Way Home”, and
the upbeat disco of “You Can’t See Thunder”. All of the tracks were written or co-written by Hart, with
collaborators Bobby Weinstein, Teddy Randazzo and Barry Richards. The 24 page booklet included with the CD contains many
photos from Hart’s personal collection, lyrics, album credits, and an interview
Iain Lee conducted with Hart.

Produced by Hart, with Richards as associate
producer, the album was recorded in Hollywood
in 1980. It initially received a limited release in a few countries, including Germany,
Scandinavia and Italy.
This 7A release marks the first time the album been officially available in the
U.S. and UK.